Cooperative Goods

Cooperative (fr. coopérative — "cooperation; A workers' community is an autonomous association of people who have voluntarily come together to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs in a cooperative enterprise controlled by democratic means. Cooperatives may include:

Enterprises owned and operated by the people who use their services (consumer cooperative);
organizations run by the people who work there (production cooperative);
mixed cooperatives;
secondary, second- and third-level cooperatives of which other cooperatives are members (Federation of Cooperatives))
various platforms and aggregators funded by the direct participants in the relationship, rather than venture capital.
Cooperatives in the form of platforms (Cooperative platforms))
A study published by the Worldwatch Institute found that in 2012, about a billion people in 96 countries became members of at least one cooperative. The turnover of the 300 largest cooperatives in the world has reached $2 trillion.

The cooperative movement is seen as the third sector of the economy: in a market economy, cooperation acts as a "third force" or "third alternative" to private and public production. Cooperation combines economic activity and social movement. Currently, there are about 700 million cooperators in the world. The International Cooperative Alliance includes 192 national cooperative unions from 76 countries. 

Cooperatives differ in the nature of the involvement of participants, they can be:

industrial with the mandatory labor participation of members are recognized as commercial organizations for taxation.
Consumer organizations, which do not require the mandatory labor participation of members in the economic activities of the cooperative, are non-profit organizations, that is, they are created to meet the material and other needs of their members and do not have the purpose of making a profit.
Cooperatives are also divided into types according to the nature of their activities:

A production cooperative is created for the purpose of conducting joint production and other economic activities based on the personal labor participation of members, and the pooling of property (share) contributions by members of the cooperative. A production cooperative provides its members with jobs. Agricultural production cooperatives have been developed.
An agricultural cooperative is a cooperative created by agricultural commodity producers and (or) citizens who conduct a personal subsidiary farm, subject to their mandatory participation in the economic activities of a consumer cooperative. Depending on the type of their activity, they are divided into processing, marketing (trade), service, supply, horticultural, horticultural, livestock and others.Agricultural Production Cooperative

A housing savings cooperative brings together citizens for the joint construction or purchase of housing.
A building cooperative is formed to own and operate buildings or other real estate.A housing cooperative is an association of citizens whose purpose is the construction of a specific apartment building and its subsequent maintenance (upon completion of construction, it performs the function of a homeowners' association).
A garage-building cooperative unites owners of garages located on a separate territory.
A dacha construction cooperative unites owners of summer cottages and houses in a horticultural area.
The concert cooperative unites musicians and other representatives of creative professions. Their appearance made it possible for musicians to perform their own songs without the need for prior coordination of the lyrics with the organs of ideological control.
A consumer credit cooperative is created to meet the needs of members for mutual financial assistance. The cooperative conducts the following financial operations for its members: provides loans, attracts savings with interest accrual.
Insurance cooperatives
A consumer society is one of the organizational and legal forms of consumer cooperation with a mixed (individuals and legal entities) composition.

In 1992, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the International Day of Cooperatives, which has been celebrated annually since then.

The UN General Assembly declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives, while highlighting the contribution of cooperatives to social and economic development. In resolution 64/136 of 18 December 2009, the General Assembly noted the role of cooperatives in poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration.

In 1844, English weavers from the town of Rochdale opened a consumer cooperative on the principles that became the basis for cooperation. These principles were:

low contributions;
a limited number of shares held by each cooperator;
all cooperators are equal and each has one vote;
the sale of goods is carried out at moderate market prices and only for cash;
The price of the product is the same for everyone (including those who are not members of the cooperative).
Between the 1860s and 1880s, cooperatives in Britain and Germany were so successful that they began to form unions. In the same years, cooperative systems arose and strengthened in Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries. In the 1890s, cooperatives in Europe had more than 2 million members.